Weekend Estimates: Warm Bodies Tops Slow Superbowl Weekend

February 3rd, 2013

Counter-programming will win the day this Superbowl weekend, with rombie comedy Warm Bodies posting a respectable $20.025 million, according to Lionsgate's Sunday estimate. While there's nothing special about that result, it does give the film a shot at making money, which is more than can be said for actioner Bullet to the Head. Sylvester Stallone's latest will limp to $4.5 million for the weekend, an even worse result than Jason Statham's Parker (which debuted with $7 million) and Arnold Schwarzenegger's The Last Stand ($6.3 million). Put those three together, and you get a combined opening of $17.8 million, which still wouldn't much to write home about if one of them had earned it on its own.

The rest of the chart is once more rich with Oscar nominees. Argo's move to front-runner status in the Oscar race has coincided with growing box office earnings. It will hit $2.1 million this weekend. Silver Linings Playbook will be down just 14% to $8.1 million and is now comfortably ahead of Zero Dark Thirty at $80 million to $77 million cume so far. Amour will post about $500,000 as it continues its rollout. That film seems like a dark horse for Best Picture to me, given that Argo, Silver Linings and Lincoln will probably split a lot of votes.

This weekend also sees three notable limited releases. The Gatekeepers launches with about $66,677 from three theaters; Sound City will pick up an estimated $70,000 in 16 venues following $120,514 on Thursday in special screenings. Finally, Koch, ironically released on the day its subject passed away, will pick up about $40,000 from two theaters.